13 April 20

Would you ever consider being a spy? Today marks the birthday of cryptologist Herbert Osborne Yardley (1889-1958). But a more well-kept secret for this date is the creation of MK-ULTRA by the CIA in 1953. MK-ULTRA was a program to develop various methods for "mind control," including drugs such as LSD and mescaline. The name is a "cryptonym," meaning that it combines elements of "code" which are familiar to its personnel but are intentionally misleading to others. (If you are familiar with the Jason Bourne stories, you will recall Treadstone and Blackbriar.) "The CIA sought, through its research, to devise a truth serum to enhance the interrogations of POWs and captured spies. The agency also wanted to develop techniques and drugs – such as "amnesia pills" – to create CIA superagents who would be immune to the mind-control efforts of adversaries." According to Wikipedia it was "officially halted" in 1973 (but nobody knows for sure!). Besides my SPY-code tie, my own closet holds a T-shirt claiming to do its own mind control.